The article discusses the potential application of Chris Anderson’s free and freemium principles from his book “Free” to the practice of law. I managed to reference Monty Python, Open Source software and modern portfolio theory, although, alas, my favorite reference to Grace Potter and the Nocturnals in my IgniteLaw presentation hit the cutting room floor.

As many readers know, I occasionally use this blog to show some of my approaches to writing. You might be interested in comparing this article to my original IgniteLaw script to see the choices, especially in resequencing the points, I made when adapting the talk to an article format.

The rest of the issue looks great, but I wanted to highlight JoAnna Forshee’s article about IgniteLaw 2011 on page 132 (online here), which summarize IgniteLaw and points to ways others might use the “Ignite” format.

Let me know what you think of my Freemium article. I’d enjoy hearing about efforts to experiment with freemium approaches in the practice of law.

Thanks to the great people at ILTA (always a pleasure to work with) for their interest in this topic and for publishing my article. If you aren’t familiar with ILTA, you need to be.

I did a presentation called “The Freemium Practice of Law” at IgniteLaw 2011 last Sunday night, produced by my good friends Matt Homann and JoAnna Forshee.

IgniteLaw takes a unique approach to presentations – 12 presenters each presenting for 6 minutes using only 20 slides apiece. And the slides advance automatically every 18 seconds.

It’s a challenging format for any speaker, no matter how experienced, especially if it doesn’t fit your usual style. Perhaps I understate that. It’s the speaking equivalent of riding in a top fuel dragster.

I found the presentation fun – in a challenging sort of way – but quickly struggled with time management. I got my points made, but not quite in the way I had hoped. My main points seemed to get across and I hope I was able to contribute in a small way to what was a fun evening with lots of high-quality presentations.

The videos will be posted soon, but I thought it might be fun to post the final version of the “rehearsal script” I had written. On that evening, the “script” turned out to be more ambitious than I’d hoped it would be (especially since I couldn’t refer to it), but I really liked the way this version of the script read. See what you think.

The Freemium Practice of Law – Rehearsal Script

1. Several years ago, when I was in the private practice of law, I had a meeting with a potential new client, a technology start-up. Things went well and they wanted to hire me. The initial project would be preparing terms of use and a privacy policy for their website.

2. I gave them an estimate and the president of the company joked that lawyers probably all used the same base documents and just changed the company names. Or at least we created documents with one push of a button. We laughed, although I felt the need to mention that even standard documents had nuances.

3. I thought a lot about that client’s view of legal work, especially documents, and the question kept coming back to me: “If clients assume we can use technology in this way and, technically, we can, why aren’t we”? I first implemented document assembly more than 20 years ago, so the issue is less technology than business model.

4. One of my favorite innovation techniques is to reverse my assumptions. I recently listened to a podcast with William Ury, co-author of a great book on negotiation. He said, “to change the game, you must change the frame.”

5. Here was my reversal. What if standard documents actually were provided to clients for free, perhaps as part of a service package? How would that work? I didn’t get very far myself, but Wired magazine editor Chris Anderson wrote a book in 2009 called “Free” that looked at the growing Internet phenomenon of successful businesses based on giving away what would traditionally be core products and services for free, and then making money in a variety of other ways.

6. Anderson’s book tells about Monty Python deciding not to sue the thousands of people who started to put video clips from their shows and movies on YouTube. Instead, Monty Python created its own YouTube channel and made high-quality video clips available for free. In exchange, they simply asked people to consider buying their products. The result: a 23,000% increase in DVD sales in 3 months, even though they were giving the same video content away.

7. That’s Freemium. Make something available for free, use that to extend your reach and audience, and then provide options for people to willingly pay for enhanced value. My definition of freemium tonight would be: Giving away “something” in order to create educated customers who better understand how to use your services and products in ways that better help themselves and for which they will happily pay to do so.

8. There’s been a lot of discussion about Richard Susskind’s custom vs. commoditized approach and you’ll be hearing more about that in the next few days at TECHSHOW. The most interesting thing about freemium, at least to me, is not so much that it will work in both contexts, but that I think it can work extremely well in the custom context.

9. Another example. Open Source software and Larry Lessig’s Creative Commons licenses. The free “something” is the software or the standardized license. The Open Source model, where the software itself is available for free, but a company like Red Hat can be quite successful selling maintenance, support, consulting services, and even T-shirts around the software, is perhaps the best example of the freemium approach.

10. Stewart Brand famously said, “Information wants to be free.” We clearly live in a world where we expect to get digital versions of music, video, books and information for free. How do lawyers fit into that world?

11. My favorite new band is Grace Potter and the Nocturnals. They let people post recordings of their live shows on the Internet. I doubt that I would have bought any CDs or even known of them if not for this approach. Now, I buy albums and would attend a show in a heartbeat. Bands can now be thought of as music services providers, giving away what we once thought of as core content and value – the music – to create revenue from shows, merchandise and other channels.

12. Now think about a “legal services provider” model. Law is certainly an information business. Are we like music? Encyclopedias? Newspapers? Other fields challenged by Internet models, aging business approaches and innovative competitors? Change the frame, change the game.

13. Lawyers often will say that clients buy documents or hours – a lawyer-centric view. When I did estate planning, I concluded that, at heart, clients were really buying peace of mind – assurance that their family would be taken care of after they were gone. In other practice areas, they might also be buying things like judgment or risk management – something they’d happily pay more for than a document or a unit of time.

14. That is the big disconnect between lawyers and clients and where the opportunity for freemium law practice comes into play. Change the frame, change the game.

15. Some ideas. Start with Anderson’s book. It has plenty of ideas that might Anderson has a lot of freemium ideas in his book that could apply to the practice of law. Here’s one of mine to start you thinking – moving from highlights to insights to personalized. Highlights: a free annual summary of important cases prepared by an associate. Insights: an audio or video where partners explaining why the cases matter. Personalized: Half-day customized presentations where your best people show a client’s legal and executive team how to address those new cases.

16. Barriers. Oh, there are a few. Not done before. It’s change. How do we bill? Bar regulation still applying a 20th century framework to 21st century client needs. Don’t underestimate – these will be difficult frames to change, but freemium is for innovators who like challenges.

17. It strikes me that simple technology can drive this. Document assembly has been around for years. Second graders are making videos these days. So much can be delivered easily via the Internet for free.

18. Where do you get ideas other than buying Matt Homann a cup of coffee? I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about Bryan Cave’s Trade Zone extranet application as a model. Other professional services firms, authors and consultants have successful models. Talk to young people, see what’s going on outside the US, and get a diversity of opinions.

19. Let me emphasize that I’m not for a second advocating a wholesale freemium approach. However, I do think that economic survival for the long term depends on taking a diversified portfolio approach. Using free to create enhanced-value freemium revenue streams should be one part of your portfolio.

20. 3 action steps for you:

1. Read Chris Anderson’s book. Even better, go to iTunes and get the audio version for free, and see if you go ahead and buy the book.

2. Carve out 30 minutes with a piece of paper and brainstorm ways you might try free and freemium, starting with places where you already heavily discount or write-off fees.

3. Change your frame and see if it changes your game

IgniteLaw 2011 was fun, fast-paced and informative. I congratulate Matt, JoAnna, all the other presenters and everyone else involved for putting on such a great event. And it was especially great to meet some other Grace Potter and the Nocturnals fans.

I was disappointed not to be able to attend the first IgniteLaw in 2010, although close observers will catch my very brief virtual appearance on the video from last year. I’m planning to make it to the recently-announced IgniteLaw 2011 that will happen on April in Chicago on the evening before the start of the 25th ABA TECHSHOW.

IgniteLaw (“The Future of Law Practice, in 6 minute increments”) is presented by my friends Matt Homann (LexThink) and JoAnna Forshee (InsideLegal). IgniteLaw uses the popular “Ignite” format with speakers getting 6 minutes to present with 20 automatically-advancing slides. The videos from last year will give you an idea of what to expect.

I thought it would be fun to come up with a possible presentation. While my first choice was to do a dramatic re-enactment of Doug Sorocco’s tremendous presentation from last year, I quickly realized that Doug’s presentation simply cannot be duplicated. We have to talk Doug into coming back this year.

The topic idea I submitted is called “The Freemium Practice of Law” and here is the description I wrote:

Richard Susskind meets Chris Anderson meets Larry Lessig on the road to new legal business models based on the notion of “Freemium.” How might lawyers give away traditional core services and products (think documents) to generate new flows of income, happy clients and personally-fulfilling work using technology readily-at-hand, Open Source principles, and new technology on the horizon?

I wanted to pull together some provocative ideas I’ve thought about off and on for the last couple of years, but haven’t written about or presented before. The talk would take me into some different areas than I’ll be presenting on at TECHSHOW (collaboration tools for transactional lawyers and Open Source software for law firms).

I’m excited about this topic and presentation. So much so that I’ve already sketched out the slides for the presentation. There’s a voting process for IgniteLaw, so I’m hopeful that my topic gets picked.

If you will be in Chicago on April 10 (for TECHSHOW or otherwise), I encourage you to attend IgniteLaw 2011. Tickets are free, seats are limited, and the information you need about tickets is here. Hope to see you there. I’ll be pestering you about going to TECHSHOW and talking a bit more about my presentations there in a future post.

Dennis Kennedy

DennisKennedy.Blog was launched on February 15, 2003.

Dennis Kennedy is one of the few technology lawyers who is also an expert on the underlying technologies. Dennis an award-winning leader in the application of technology and the Internet to the practice of law.

This site gives you access to a wide variety of Dennis Kennedy's writings and information about how you can have Dennis speak to your organization or group.

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Dennis Kennedy is one of the most knowledgeable legal technologists you will find. - Michael Arkfeld.

Dennis Kennedy, a lawyer and legal technology expert in St. Louis, Mo., has been a significant influence in the ever-evolving relationship between lawyers and the Web. - Robert Ambrogi